pcut 630 for very small characters?

[MilesB 0]

Hi

I'm an electronic engineer and have had a request to make some low cost warning displays - about like "Check Engine" lights on a dashboard but mostly numbers. I want a mask of matte black vinyl with characters cut out for the light to shine through. It's important that the vinyl is thick enough to block all light (mid intensity LED) as I need good contrast with low brightness at night. The characters I am aiming at are about 4mm tall minimum, mostly numbers, simple font. Can this machine do work this small, in a suitably thick material? If not in a material thick enough, I may be able to use a thinner material and shoot black paint.

Your thoughts?, and thanks!

[sandman 5]

Should be able to do it no problem. Also the calendered vinyl is solid in color so having it thicker should not be required to block light. Some of the cast vinyl is a little opaque. As far as thickness goes I cut my static cling material on my Pcut and it is twice as thick as the vinyl. Just adjust the blade to go through it and maybe kick up the pressure to 140.

The smallest thing I've cut was some little birds out of the SBE library and I made them 4mm or less with perfect detail.

The fact that you will be weeding the letters and numbers instead trying to remove the background from around them may make your task doable. I hate to weed small letters when the cuts don't finish clean.

[MilesB 0]

Awesome, thanks! Pcut here I come.

[CyberChuck 4]

Miles,

    I don't think you'll regret it. I know I haven't.

Charlie

[MilesB 0]

OK I bought the machine and finally got around to messing with it. Not having much luck with the small characters at this point. I think it might be the vinyl I bought. I went to a local place that sells it and bought... well I don't really know. He said it was cast. It doesn't have a name on the backing paper. It is dead opaque though. No light gets through it at all.

I played with the blade depth and the pressure to try and stop it from snagging, but no joy. The smaller I go, the more it snags. The sample that came with the machine looks like a thinner product and there is no sign of snagging at all.

Can anyone recommend a good quality vinyl for my purposes (and some place that sells it in Melbourne would be a huge plus!)? I want it to block light as well as possible, but not snagging is now the priority. Any tips what else I might be doing wrong?

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

try backing your blade back in a little to see if that helps the snagging

for vinyl  Oracal

[MilesB 0]

I backed it in so that there's about half a credit card thickness showing. Didn't seem to help. One thing I noticed with the blade holder is when I tip it blade down, the blade can fall out a little. I adjust it to the half credit card with the blade pointed up as I figure the vinyl will push it back in? Also, the little poker to push the blade out is missing from my blade holder. Any idea if that could cause a problem? After I adjust the depth, I then put the blade holder into the print head part and bottom it out - flange on the holder against the print head.

Are there better blades available? What are the different angled blades for?

[MilesB 0]

I changed to one of the other blades that came with the cutter and it is significantly better. Are there better quality blades out there? I'm still having trouble with leaving the center of a small letter "e" on the paper but it really is tiny. Probably about 1/32" x 1/32". Should it be able to cut that cleanly?

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

now you are reaching the limits of the less expensive cutters but for one last bit of improvement get a blade from http://www.cleancutblade.com/  You will never go back after you try them

[MilesB 0]

Cheers, will do. I have ordered some Oracal 751C and will get those blades too. I'm hoping that will be just enough to get the job done. I'm pretty close now with the mystery vinyl and cheapo blades.

[bamafan2277 50]

I 2nd the clean cut blades!

[CRD 9]

Just have a try to lower the speed and try again untill it gets better.

AFAIK, small charaters cut better with 60 degrees angle knife.

Paco

[MilesB 0]

Thanks for all the replies.

I did try slowing the blade down but it didn't really help. I will buy some 45 and 60 degree clean cut blades and give them both a try.

[MilesB 0]

I just found some posts regarding blade offset. That really helped a lot too. I am very very close to perfect with unknown vinyl and the cheap blade. I really think that with good vinyl and the better blade I will be set. Thanks everyone! For reference I am cutting "0123456789" in Helvetica Medium at a height of 3.8mm. That's tiny. If this machine can hold that accuracy I will be very impressed. Reckon I might buy another pinch roller or two though.

I am still losing a couple of the really small circles - I think they stick to the blade. I found another tip in an old post - open the vector a tad so that the vinyl sticks better. If it comes down to it, I will do that too.

Now if I can just get this USB driver to behave properly with SBE/Vista........

[MilesB 0]

Another question... are there other blade holders that fit that might get better results? Since I'm buying a bunch of new blades would I be better off changing all of it if possible?